burnttwinky wrote:
Unfortunately, in some ways I do fall under the over represented portion since I am a male Indian Engineer. I am American-born, but I am not sure whether that puts me in a different pool. A few years ago, I moved into a capital analyst role in my company, which is the exact opposite of what I did in engineering. I am hoping that helps differentiate me from the traditional Indian engineer at Duke. My extracurricular is pretty solid, but I can always improve if necessary. I will be visiting Duke on April 27th to attend a class, tour the campus, and meet with a ad com; however, I am somewhat skeptical whether the meeting with the ad com is going to help me understand what I need to do from now until fall to improve my chances.
IMHO it does NOT put you into the category of internationals.. If you are born in America, you are American, no matter what your ethnicity is. I think you would compete with every other American male candidate of varying ethnicity.
I know I open a sensitive topic here, but I cannot see business schools sub-classifying Americans based on ethnicity and clubbing them into the applicant pool with internationals of the same ethnicity.
Even permanent residents apparently(?) hold some distinction from internationals who have no affiliation to the US. It could boil down to employ-ability of the candidate in the American market in this economy.
Aah well. Tis' what it is. Still makes an American education worthwhile! Back to the books!
And good luck! I see you being decently competitive with a 700+ score, even if it is your 5th try, but I suggest KILLING it (730+) with some retrospection on the psychology of test-day which seems to be your weakness.
I completely agree that a 700+ score on the 5th try is better than a 660 on the 1st try, but it won't be easy for me to accomplish that. One of the things that is killing me on the exam is wasting my time on quant questions trying to process some of the questions and understanding what the question is actually asking me. I feel like that on the gmat prep and Knewton exams, there are enough "easy" questions to help make up for the lost time, but that's just my opinion. I'll try to take the exam before the format change, so I will not have to waste my time for the next 2 months becoming familiar with a new section. Hopefully I will be able to come through and improve my candidacy.